Photo: Raphael Gaillarde/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images (2012)
Sample of authors
Pollock, Donald Ray
The American author Donald Ray Pollock was born and grew up in America’s backyard. In the little community called Knockemstiff in southern Ohio, there was – when Pollock was a child – a gravel road, some shops and about 400 inhabitants, most of them related to each other. When he was 17 years old, he dropped out of high school and got a job at a meat-packing factory in the neighbouring town of Chi...
Literary figures
Arkadij Renko
Gender: Male
Police officer in the Soviet Union and Russia, at first a detective chief inspector, but later demoted after he tried to expose the shady dealings of communist bigwigs. His father was a notorious general. Arkady Renko is middle-aged, thin with a pale face and greying dark hair. His first wife, Zaya, was unfaithful and left him, Martin Cruz Smith tells us. His second wife, Irina, dies after...